Mighty oaks of Maryland and other things

A few weeks ago, Brian and I drove down to Rising Sun, Maryland to do a little geocaching. Caching has been not happening that much this winter as we have had a classic ‘Alaskan’ winter. My pal was saying it is milder this year in Alaska than it is on the mainland. They can’t even have their iditarod races this year for lack of snow and cold. Wow!

So we hit a few caches and they involved mostly humongous oak trees. This one was near a school and cemetery. Brian looked like a peanut under it! The cache was pretty easy to find.

Just think of the history this tree has survived through. All the winters, storms, etc. and it’s still standing!

I’m sure the oak was planted around the same time this meeting house was constructed.

A few other oak trees along route one were not as lucky. One was near a little cafe, aptly named ‘The Spready Oak’. There was suppose to be a cache tucked in the remains of it, but we couldn’t find it. We went in the cafe, and sure enough the waitress knew all about the cache (she said it like a cache case) and it was gone as she use to put stuff in it. The cache owner knows about it and plans to add a new one.

We found a cute diary in the middle of no where. There were some goats and ponies too. The cache was kind of out in the open, but it probably under bushy leaves in nicer weather.

That pony nibbled my fingers!

It was lunchtime, but we didn’t want ice cream for the meal. Maybe we’ll come back another time if we remember the place.

Our last stop was this cemetery that would have been perfect for a Stephen King movie. It was up on a hill. The little church is so tiny (locked up tight and under surveillance). Out of picture range is a modern day housing development.

Well we looked for that cache high and low, and could not find it! I was kind of glad to get moving as the sun was hanging low by the time we gave up. My phone GPS was going too and we missed a cache in a memorial right down the hill! Brian can take about 5-6 caches and call it a day.

We headed to Oxford and got some produce and ordered pizza from one of the last Pizza Huts around.

A few days later, the three of us were off on a Monday (MLK day) and drove up to the Pottstown, PA area to the Philadelphia Outlets as we had never been to these. There were a few stores I adored- Crabtree and Evelyn and Vera Bradley! I got some long sleeved t-shirts at Talbots too.

We then headed to Skippack, but this wasn’t the best time of year to go there. We looked for about 3 caches and found two.

This past weekend (1/25 to 1/26) I had my mom here to treat her to a show. We sent down to Wilmington and the Dupont Theater to see ‘Ballroom with a Twist’ featuring ‘Dancing with the Stars’ dancers Cheryl Burke, Derek Hough, Tony Dovolani and Peta Murgatroyd. We also were pleasantly surprised by the talent of ‘American Idol’ finalists Von Smith and Gina Glocksen. Also the Cirque De Soleil acrobats and ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ performers. The many troupe dancers performed the most.

We had to climb up to the balcony (oops) but we had a very good point of view of the stage. I don’t remember seeing performers faces so clearly either. The costumes were sparkly and the dancing almost effortless, though certainly not easy.

My mom had a little trouble hearing the question and answer session, but all in all I think she enjoyed the show. I really thought the acrobats were amazing! They used ‘silks’ and twisted and turned on them-I don’t know how they do it!

When we were waiting for Brian to pick us up, we ended up chatting with some ladies who had driven up from Virgina to see the show. I went out to take a few shots and came in and saw the one young lady posing with Von and Gina! I took this quick shot and mine was better than her friend’s shot. I put it on Instragram and she did finally see it.

Next post will probably be a visit to the Longwood Garden orchid show! (Whenever that will be!)